Juno Calypso

Juno Calypso

United Kingdom, born in 1989

Juno Calypso deals with self-portraiture, advancing a critical stance on modern rites of seduction and beauty by deploying the character of Joyce, a fictional double. Setting up her avatar in various imaginary interiors, in which the least detail is carefully contrived — a powder- pink bedroom; a secretary’s office invaded by 1980s computer equipment; a reception desk in a beauty parlour, etc. — the London artist uses Joyce both to call into question femininity as a construct and to denounce the planned obsolescence of hi-tech devices.

The multidisciplinary artist’s video entitled The Linda Evans Rejuvenique Facial Toning System (2012), selected to appear in the exhibition reGeneration3, operates as a spoof on an old advertisement praising the merits of an electronic anti-wrinkle mask. Typical of the artist’s weirdly kitsch world, not even its countless layers of nail varnish and foundation quite manage to drown out the undercurrent of feminist critique.